Tens of thousands of demonstrators crowded onto French streets on Saturday to denounce the rise of the country’s far-right political party and call on fellow citizens to block it from taking power in snap parliamentary elections set by President Emmanuel Macron.
The protests, organized by the country’s five biggest labor unions, were widely supported by human rights associations, activists, artists and backers of a newly formed left-wing coalition of political parties, the New Popular Front. Most protesters painted a dark picture of the country under a far-right prime minister.
“For the first time since the Vichy regime, the extreme right could prevail again in France,” Olivier Faure, the leader of the Socialist Party, said while addressing the crowd in Paris.
That prospect brought out of retirement former President François Hollande, who announced on Saturday that he would run for legislative elections to help ensure that the far right would not take power.
“The situation is very grave,” he said, in his hometown, Corrèze. “For those who feel lost, we need to convince them: The coming together of the French is indispensable.”
Mr. Macron shocked the country last week by announcing that he was dissolving the lower house of Parliament and calling for new parliamentary elections after his centrist Renaissance party was clobbered by the far-right National Rally party in elections for the European Parliament.
